Green Fields and Running Brooks | Page 6

feller's

strength lays,--he's so
common-like and plain,--
They haint no dude about old Jap, you bet
you--nary grain! They 'lected him to Council and it never turned his
head, And did n't make no differunce what anybody said,--
He didn't
dress no finer, ner rag out in fancy clothes;
But his voice in
Council-meetin's is a turrer to his foes.
He's fer the pore man ever' time! And in the last campaign He stumped
old Morgan County, through the sunshine and the rain, And helt the
banner up'ards from a-trailin' in the dust,
And cut loose on
monopolies and cuss'd and cuss'd and cuss'd! He'd tell some funny
story ever' now and then, you know,
Tel, blame it! it wuz better 'n a
jack-o'-lantern show!
And I'd go furder, yit, to-day, to hear old Jap
norate
Than any high-toned orator 'at ever stumped the State!
W'y, that-air blame Jap Miller, with his keen sircastic fun, Has got
more friends than ary candidate 'at ever run!
Do n't matter what his
views is, when he states the same to you, They allus coincide with
your'n, the same as two and two: You can't take issue with him--er, at
least, they haint no sense In startin' in to down him, so you better not
commence.-- The best way's jes' to listen, like your humble servant
does, And jes' concede Jap Miller is the best man ever wuz!
A SOUTHERN SINGER.
Written In Madison Caweln's "Lyrics and Idyls."
Herein are blown from out the South
Songs blithe as those of Pan's
pursed mouth--
As sweet in voice as, in perfume,
The night-breath
of magnolia-bloom.
Such sumptuous languor lures the sense--
Such luxury of indolence--

The eyes blur as a nymph's might blur,
With water-lilies watching
her.

You waken, thrilling at the trill
Of some wild bird that seems to spill

The silence full of winey drips
Of song that Fancy sips and sips.
Betimes, in brambled lanes wherethrough
The chipmunk stripes
himself from view,
You pause to lop a creamy spray
Of
elder-blossoms by the way.
Or where the morning dew is yet
Gray on the topmost rail, you set

A sudden palm and, vaulting, meet
Your vaulting shadow in the
wheat.
On lordly swards, of suave incline,
Entessellate with shade and shine,

You shall misdoubt your lowly birth,
Clad on as one of princely
worth:
The falcon on your wrist shall ride--
Your milk-white Arab side by
side
With one of raven-black.--You fain
Would kiss the hand that
holds the rein.
Nay, nay, Romancer! Poet! Seer!
Sing us back home--from there to
here;
Grant your high grace and wit, but we
Most honor your
simplicity.--
Herein are blown from out the South
Songs blithe as those of Pan's
pursed mouth--
As sweet in voice as, in perfume,
The night-breath
of magnolia-bloom.
A DREAM OF AUTUMN.
Mellow hazes, lowly trailing
Over wood and meadow, veiling

Somber skies, with wildfowl sailing
Sailor-like to foreign lands;

And the north-wind overleaping
Summer's brink, and floodlike
sweeping
Wrecks of roses where the weeping
Willows wring their
helpless hands.
Flared, like Titan torches flinging
Flakes of flame and embers,

springing
From the vale the trees stand swinging
In the moaning
atmosphere;
While in dead'ning-lands the lowing
Of the cattle,
sadder growing,
Fills the sense to overflowing
With the sorrow of
the year.
Sorrowfully, yet the sweeter
Sings the brook in rippled meter
Under
boughs that lithely teeter
Lorn birds, answering from the shores

Through the viny, shady-shiny
Interspaces, shot with tiny
Flying
motes that fleck the winy
Wave-engraven sycamores.
Fields of ragged stubble, wrangled
With rank weeds, and shocks of
tangled
Corn, with crests like rent plumes dangled
Over Harvest's
battle-piain;
And the sudden whir and whistle
Of the quail that, like
a missile,
Whizzes over thorn and thistle,
And, a missile, drops
again.
Muffled voices, hid in thickets
Where the redbird stops to stick its

Ruddy beak betwixt the pickets
Of the truant's rustic trap;
And the
sound of laughter ringing
Where, within the wild-vine swinging,

Climb Bacchante's schoolmates, flinging
Purple clusters in her lap.
Rich as wine, the sunset flashes
Round the tilted world, and dashes

Up the sloping west and splashes
Red foam over sky and sea--
Till
my dream of Autumn, paling
In the splendor all-prevailing,
Like a
sallow leaf goes sailing
Down the silence solemnly.
TOM VAN ARDEN.
Tom Van Arden, my old friend,
Our warm fellowship is one
Far too
old to comprehend
Where its bond was first begun:
Mirage-like
before my gaze
Gleams a land of other days,

Where two truant boys,
astray,
Dream their lazy lives away.
There's a vision, in the guise
Of Midsummer, where the Past
Like a
weary beggar lies
In the shadow Time has cast;
And as blends the

bloom of trees
With the drowsy hum of bees,
Fragrant thoughts and
murmurs blend,
Tom Van Arden, my old friend.
Tom Van Arden, my old friend,
All the pleasures we have known

Thrill me now as I extend
This old hand and grasp your own--

Feeling, in the rude caress,
All affection's tenderness;
Feeling,
though the touch be rough,
Our old souls are soft enough.
So we'll make a mellow hour:
Fill your pipe, and taste the wine--

Warp your face, if it be sour,
I can spare a smile from mine;
If it
sharpen up your wit,
Let me feel the edge of it--
I have eager ears to
lend,
Tom Van Arden, my old